Google’s Place Pages Get New Features

Google Local Business is getting some pretty heavy attention these days. Why wouldn’t it? With 2010 being the “official” year of mobile and with Google having its own phone (although they would like to see other people have it as well) there is much to celebrate. Of course this isn’t without its issues such as listings being hijacked (check out Lisa Barone’s excellent post at Small Business Trends to learn about that mess) but nothing’s perfect right?

Holding a special event today? Want to post a coupon for 5-7pm tonight? Have a new product in stock? You can now get the word out by posting to your Place Page directly from your Local Business Center dashboard. Once you’ve logged in and are on your business’ dashboard, post an update and it will go live on your Place Page in just a few minutes.

Here’s what it looks like.

Pretty cool. Now you just need to get people there to take advantage of it but we’ll save that for another time.

The other feature is a badge to certify that the listing has been updated by the owner.

We are also introducing a badge for listings that have been claimed in the Local Business Center. This helps our users identify listings that have been updated and improved by their business owners, helping them to trust that the information about your business is as accurate as possible. We are also making it even easier to claim your listing directly from the Place Page by following the “Business owner?” link.

Of course, hijacking of these listings is still possible so while this seems like a nice feature you can never be totally sure as to whether the owner has certified it or someone else has pilfered it.

So happy listing with Google’s Local Business offering. Tell us how you do.